December 14 (SeeNews) - Two international consortia want to build photovoltaic parks with hundreds of megawatts (MW) of installed capacities in the Bulgarian town of Karnobat, state-run news agency BTA reported on Monday.
A consoritum of five companies comprising partners from Ireland and Portugal and called High Solar Energy has proposed to build a 500 MW solar park on an area of 1,124 hectares, BTA quoting Karnobat mayor Georgi Dimitrov as saying.
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The consortium wants to build initially 320 MW of solar capacities and increase them to 500 MW later.
"The bank references of this candidate amount to 1.9 billion euro ($2.78 billion)," BTA (www.bta.bg) quoted Dimitrov as saying.
The other consortium comprises German energy group Kuessel and Bulgarian-registered Unlimited Energy, Dimtrov said. The company has proposed to build 240 MW of solar energy capacities worth 570 million euro.
The development of renewable energy resources in Bulgaria has gained momentum since the country joined the European Union in 2007, and is expected to intensify further. Bulgaria must cover 16% of its gross energy consumption with electricity generated from renewables by 2020 to meet the requirements of the bloc.
Currently Bulgaria has just 3.0 MW of solar energy capacities and 330 MW of installed wind farms. Electricity generated from renewable resources, mostly water, currently cover less than 10% of Bulgaria's gross electricity consumption.
In September, a consortium between Greek technology company Alpha Grissin and Spanish wind park developer Preneal said it woudl build a 155 million euro wind farm in Karnobat after it was awarded a 30-year concession on a total area of 842.4 hectares. The wind farm will have an installed capacity of 111 MW, the consortium said.
($ = 0.6829 euro)